A week at Shanti Nivas.

I have been at Shanti Nivas for the last week.

Thompson House and the Pickford Memorial Hospice are at Brighter Future's  very rural site called Shanti Nivas. The site is 2 km from the main road which runs the 28 km from Vizianagaram to Gajapatinagaram, where our other children's homes are situated. 

Thompson House has 26 HIV infected children at present. The children go to the very good government schools in Ompalli village, just 2km away. The older children cycle to school and the younger ones go in our auto-rickshaw.  

After school the children have a teacher to supervise their homework and help when necessary. The schools were closed for about two months recently due to the political unrest and strikes. Now the children have to go to school every day, including Sundays so that they can complete the syllabus in time for the end of year exams. They don't complain and are very aware of the opportunities that education gives them. Our children are often in classes below their age group because they were refused education as young children when it was discovered that their parents, or they, had HIV. Some had never been to school before coming to Brighter Future homes.







We made Christmas cards  and the five children who had arrived after last Christmas made a peg doll figure to go in the crib.

Little white lights were strung up over the crib 

Although they had very little spare time the children were very good at offering to help me prepare the vegetable garden for seed sewing. The children sewed seeds  of spinach, aubergine, lady's finger and several different kinds of beans.  Some seeds had started coming up up after five days.

The hospice has 15 beds but there are usually about 10 patients, both HIV/AIDS adults and children. The number fluctuates from week to week as some become well enough to go home, others sadly die. Many of the patients are suffering from TB. Some are referred to us because they have a short time to live, others have complications because they did not take their anti retroviral medicines for a number of reasons. All are anaemic and malnourished.

I took some children's books for them to read, or to be read from.  Most of our patients cannot read or write, If they cannot write they have to 'sign' documents with an indelible ink thumbprint, right had for men and left for ladies. 

The nurse and one of our children read stories to some patients. 

One lady who was accompanying her deaf and dumb daughter, asked me if I had some Christian books.so I took her a a very nicely illustrated Children's Bible in Telugu.

We played games. Memory games and dominoes, simple jigsaw puzzles and learning to recognise numbers puzzles.

If we had a large screen TV, with a facility to play CD's, they could watch folk stories educational CD's and animated children's films.

There are always jobs that need doing and I go around looking for them! Getting new washing lines put up, cleaning walls that have become grubby, teaching children to use the computer, seeing what's broken! There are never enough hours in the day for me. 

On Sunday 14th  I moved to Prem Nivas to start work on their vegetable garden plots.

Our Count Down to Christmas at Prem Nivas.

December the first was World Aids Awareness Day . Some of the big boys from Prem Nivas went, by themselves on the bus, to the start of the rally,  where Victor Director Uncle was waiting for them. It is an annual event  in Vizianagaram, at which government officers show their faces etc and make speeches. The children, as usual, had to wait around for the politicians and officials to arrive, as these things are always delayed by the late arrival of said officialdom.

Our  five boys joined the march to the speech venue along with local nursing students, boy scouts, army cadets etc  They carried a Brighter Future Banner. I used to walk with them but haven’t bothered for the past few years because all the hanging around. When there is a good Collector (Chief Government Officer) things are more efficient. 

The new collector is,  hopefully, an efficient and interested man. 

Victor went  to introduce himself and is planning to invite various government officials, connected with children and health, to our Christmas Lunch at Shanti Nivas. 

Only 20 days till the Christmas party! All the cards are finished and on their way to the UK. Hari, whom I call my DIY man, came to ask me if he could make the Christmas tree again this year. 

He cut straight pieces of bamboo and split them into thinner pieces about 3 feet long. Having laid out the sticks into a tree shape, measured them and bound them together, Hari and Janaki (our amateur electrician) fixed the tree frame to an upright trunk and planted the tree in a flower pot. I thought the children might like the tree near their rooms but they insisted that it should be near the main gate.

 Last night they wound green lights around the tree frame and attached a star that my daughter had given me. Janaki connected the wires to an  extension box and the cable runs though my window to the power outlet socket. 



I'm thinking of getting the Primary children to make red chinese lanterns to go on the tree. I will have to rack my brains to remember back 70 odd years to when we made them during the  war, when tree decorations were not available! 

Lanterns were made by the first 3 classes.

Then we  got our crib out and redressed some of the peg doll figures. 

Hari cut the bamboo and carefully worked out the spacing, Janaki helped with the wiring and we had several helpers to hang the frame over the parapet .

Nurse Laxmi bought a big star to go on the roof.

We decided to try something more adventurous on the parapet of the Main building.  Words instead of loops!

After school the older children helped the young er ones to make crepe paper decorations 

The children of the Primary School 

T.

New hymns to learn, drama and dances to learn!